


Paper Chase

by seaspan



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Codes & Ciphers, Coming of Age, Cryptography, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Heartwarming, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Mystery, OT4 Feels, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Slice of Life, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28129857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaspan/pseuds/seaspan
Summary: “I didn’t call that one,” Gon said to Killua, who pointed to ten digits written under the lyrics of some emo, nihilistic rock anthem. Gon wrinkled his nose. “I called this one,” he said, showing the other boy what had grabbed his attention.Blue eyes flicked over to what Gon was talking about, then they narrowed. “That’s not a phone number.”“It’s not?”Killua raised an eyebrow at Gon. “Have you ever seen a phone number this long?”*****Gon earns his first detention of high school, and he expects only terrible things to come out of it. But while he's there, he discovers a secret message carved into his desk which leads to the start of an adventure. With the help of his two fellow detention-serving classmates, as well as the assistant principal's student assistant, the four embark on a journey to save the school year from becoming what it’s destined to be: a total and utter, embarrassingly boring, coming-of-age disaster.
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck, Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	1. Troublemakers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: possible pedantry and light math going forward XD
> 
> This story is about the main four going on a code-breaking adventure of sorts. I don’t know what inspired me to write this… but a few days after I started it, there was some interesting news about the infamous Z340 cipher getting solved! What a coincidence.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from this lovely song right [here](https://youtu.be/c_FBnpwf9y0).
> 
> Disclaimer: Hunter x Hunter belongs to Togashi-san, not me.

The high school had two entrances. One was the ‘front’ where visitors came in, as well as upperclassmen who had cars and drove to school, since it was closest to the senior lot. The other was known as the ‘back’ which was closest to the bus loop. Accordingly, both entrances had their own respective offices. The front office was where all the important stuff happened, like morning announcements. It was where Principal Netero’s office was. In the back office, that’s where most of the actual administrative work got done, since that’s where the assistant principal, Beans, had his office.

And more importantly for this story, that’s where after-school detention was held.

Today, there were three students in detention, and a single supervising teacher. They sat apart in the room, staggered away from each other to discourage interaction. The room itself was really quite sad. The desks were small, and only three of the four legs on any given one of them would stand on the floor at a time. This made it very infuriating to do homework on them, because when you pressed down on the desktop, it would shift forward and when you let up on the surface, it would rock back. Unfortunately, homework was really the only thing you could do in detention. That or stare off into space.

One of the three unfortunate students in the room, Gon, had just learned this about thirty seconds ago, when detention officially started. The scary lady at the front of the room told him and his two companions the rules.

“Now listen here, you maggots.” Her name was Ms. Biscuit Krueger, and she was blonde and frankly terrifying. She was tall with an extremely muscular figure and an expression which promised retribution if you pissed her off. “If any one of you talks out of turn, you’ll get to spend another lovely afternoon with me here, tomorrow.” She smiled sweetly, though it didn’t actually seem that nice. “Understand?” Gon had nodded promptly and vigorously while the other two made no indication that they heard her. One had his head resting on his arms, eyes slipped shut while the other had a cheap paperback out, thumbing through its pages. The fact was that the other two students had served detention before. They could even be called regulars. However, it was Gon’s first time at detention and he hoped it would be his last. His aunt would kill him if he made a habit of this.

Anyways, the situation was similar to being on a commercial plane. The first time, you listen raptly to the flight attendant giving safety instructions. By your tenth time flying, you’re already falling asleep before the plane has left its gate. Ms. Krueger stood from the desk she had been sitting on, then walked down the aisle towards the white-haired boy who was… was he snoring? She continued relaying the rules, “You have anything to say, you raise your hand until I call on you. No phones, no music players, none of those crazy gadgets that you kids carry around these days. If I see it, I take it. Understood?” Gon again nodded vigorously, watching as the blonde lady stopped beside the sleeping boy’s desk. The latter was not fazed at all, apparently he really had fallen asleep. There’s no way he could be pretending, not with the lady’s terrifying aura directed entirely at him.

She looked down at the silver head resting on the pathetically small desk, her stare full of derision. “You may do homework or read quietly. Anything else is forbidden and…” She reached down, pinching the sleeping boy’s ear and tugging it upright.

“OW!” The reaction was immediate and deafening. “What the hell, old hag?!”

“That includes sleeping.” The blonde grinned wickedly at the silver-haired boy, who was rubbing his abused ear to make sure it was still there. She turned on her heel, striding back to her post up front. On her way over, she remarked, “Detention with me again tomorrow, Killua.” The boy gave her the middle finger behind her back. Without turning around, she added, “And the day after tomorrow.” Killua let his head fall onto the desk with an audible thump and a groan. His desk pivoted forward on two legs and knocked him in the forehead a second time.

The third boy had not said anything or shown any interest in the interaction between their supervisor and Killua. Instead he was apparently engrossed in his novel, lightly chewing on his thumbnail as his gray eyes flicked across the pages with remarkable speed. Gon turned back to look at Killua who was staring at the wall, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his shorts. His mouth slanted down at a frighteningly displeased angle, eyes narrowed in a death glare, and he practically radiated annoyance. Gon turned back to face the front.

Ms. Krueger was now perched on her desk, one muscular leg hanging off the other while she read some magazine with a ridiculous cover. Gon’s attention got caught by some movement happening over her shoulder. There was a glass pane separating the detention room from the school office and inside the latter, someone was moving around frantically. The guy was hurriedly organizing stacks of folders onto a desk, only for said folders to go tumbling to the floor and the papers inside spilling out everywhere. Gon winced and bit his lip sympathetically, but there was really nothing to be done. He sighed and got his homework out of his bookbag, hoping to get a little work finished.

The clock at the front of the room ticked maddeningly slow. Gon looked down at his papers, only to look up some time later and find that a mere thirty seconds had passed. Time crawled even slower here than it did in a regular classroom. His leg started to jiggle, that nervous habit always appearing whenever he had to sit still for too long. About ten minutes in, he gave up on doing his homework, instead turning the page he was writing on into a rather elaborate paper airplane. He raised it up, getting ready to give it a test flight, until Ms. Krueger caught his eye with a dangerous glint in her stare. Gon gulped and quietly placed his invention back onto his desk, not noticing that Killua had been watching him curiously. The dark-haired boy slumped forward, totally defeated and bored. He wanted to kick his legs childishly under the desk. They were almost starting to feel sore from inactivity.

Half an hour in and their blonde chaperone suddenly stood up from her perch. She marched towards Killua’s desk, then stopped beside it for the second time this afternoon. She held her hand out expectantly while the silver-haired boy looked up at her with round eyes, an innocuous expression. “What?” he asked innocently.

“Don’t mess with me, Zoldyck.” He narrowed his eyes at her, and she only smirked at him. “Or do I need to call your parents?” she asked and then added pointedly, “Again?”

Killua’s blank expression was quickly replaced by a frown. He lifted his hand from its hiding place under his desk, and Ms. Krueger confiscated the Walkman in his possession. She returned to her observation point with a smug, satisfied expression. Killua, on the other hand, resumed glaring at the wall so intensely that Gon was surprised  _ not _ to see a hole burning through it. What did Killua expect? He had heard the rules, hadn’t he? … okay, maybe not when they were spoken today. He’d been snoozing. But while he was here during some previous offense, he must have learned the laws of the land -- er, of this tiny excuse of a classroom. Yet Killua still wore the face of someone who’d just suffered some grave injustice. Gon found that sort of amusing, and he started to giggle quietly until Killua swung around and directed his death glare at Gon. That shut the dark-haired boy up real quick.

The minute hand of the plain, round clock hanging above Ms. Krueger crawled to the twelve o’clock position, mercifully signalling that they only had an hour left to serve. Gon could hear the sound of the boy to his left flipping leisurely through his novel, while Killua tapped his foot in a distracting, impatient rhythm to Gon’s right. There was the intermittent sound of a crash coming from the office adjacent to their little holding cell, always followed by a frustrated groan. Occasionally, Ms. Krueger would let out a small giggle and a sigh as she perused her magazine, making Gon feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Gon turned his attention to his left, towards the hallway. The detention room was set up so that the entire wall it shared with the hallway was made of glass. Therefore, anyone walking through the hall could look in and pass judgement on the delinquents inside. It was a rather shameful design, but Gon was sort of glad for it in this moment because the outside was filled with more distractions. In particular, his ears perked up when he heard the sound of a vacuum starting, and then sweeping back and forth against some carpeted surface. A moment later and a man with fuschia hair was inching into view, cleaning apparatus in hand. His muscular arms bulged as he cleaned, exposed by his sleeveless shirt. He must have felt Gon staring at him because he looked up from the floor to intercept the boy’s gaze. The janitor’s eyes lit up, and his lips stretched to a thin smile, wiggling his fingers at Gon in this faintly suggestive manner. Gon resisted the urge to shiver, giving the strange man a tight smile before searching for some other distraction.

Apparently though, what was going on in the hallway was more interesting than the material in Ms. Krueger’s scandalous magazine. Gon could almost pinpoint the moment her eyes turned into hearts, and she hopped to her feet cheerfully. The ground shook slightly at the action. “Now listen here, you little twerps.” She pointed a finger at them. “I need to take care of some business.” Gon heard Killua chuckle faintly at the statement. “If I come back and see any single one of you out of your seat, talking or doing anything otherwise forbidden, I will give  _ all of you _ detention for the rest of the week. Got it?” After only Gon nodded his understanding, Ms. Krueger promptly left the room. He watched as she walked with the janitor down the hall and out of sight, practically clinging to his muscular arm. The janitor was tall but the blonde was taller, and she looked down at him with this openly fawning expression.

There was a quick movement to Gon’s right and suddenly Killua was at the door, clinging to the frame as his blue eyes flicked up and down the hallway, checking to see if the coast was clear. He had a skateboard tucked under one arm. His arm itself was covered in bruises and scrapes, as were his knees. Colorful bandages formed a funny patchwork over his fair skin.

“What are you doing?” Gon asked. The silver-haired boy looked at him with surprise. Gon blinked at him, tilting his head in a further question.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” was the answer, paired with the rolling of blue eyes. “I’m blowing this place. I fucking hate detention.”

“You’ll get in even more trouble if you do that,” Gon pointed out. 

Killua scowled at him. “I already have detention for the next two days.” He shrugged. “Might as well serve the rest of the week if that’s what the old hag wants.”

“Didn’t you hear what she said?” Killua stared at Gon incredulously, giving the dark-haired boy his answer. “If you skip out, we’ll also get detention for the rest of the week,” Gon said, gesturing to himself and the third boy who still hadn’t said anything. Upon being dragged into the conversation though, said boy closed his book over his placeholder and placed it on his desk with careful, deliberate movements. His hands were slender and elegant, and he had this nice calm about him.

“He’s right, Killua.” Even his voice was airy and soothing. “I ask that you refrain from being childish today. Normally when we serve together, I don’t mind bearing the consequences of your immaturity.” Killua’s expression had twisted into a mix of anger and embarrassment. “But today, we have another student with us…” The blond boy trailed off, looking at Gon uncertainly.

“Gon,” he supplied cheerfully, to which the blond nodded.

“Gon is with us today. For his sake, I ask that you follow the rules.” He glanced at the clock. “We only have an hour left.”

Killua didn’t look convinced by this, so Gon quickly added, “And besides, Ms. Krueger still has your music player, doesn’t she?”

Apparently Killua had forgotten about this small detail. His anger gave way to realization. He gritted his teeth, then dragged his feet back to his desk, dropping onto his chair with a sigh of disgust. Gon turned to the blond boy with a small smile, and the action was mirrored by the latter who introduced himself as Kurapika.

Some more minutes went by without their chaperone returning. Kurapika went back to his book while Killua started fiddling with the wheels of his skateboard. Gon had nothing on his person to occupy himself with, so he continued to search his surroundings for a distraction. The space was impressively plain, as if intentionally kept this way to torture students with ennui. Gon’s eyes eventually fell to his desk, which he found more interesting than his entire surroundings put together. Apparently, the students who served time in the past had also felt bored out of their minds. The desktop was marked heavily with vandalism, ranging from simple words scrawled in faded graphite to deep marks carved into the woodwork, the lettering archaic and elaborate. There were several notes of the form ‘A.B. + C.D.’ surrounded by a lopsided heart. Others said things along the lines of ‘i hate this fucking place’ and ‘call me’ with ten digits following afterwards.

Towards the right side of the surface, there was a message which seemed a little different from the rest. It was a long string of numbers, chiseled in neatly and extending for several lines:

52142581782626182115761122121

There was something peculiar about this. It was way too long to be a regular phone number, but Gon thought it could belong to someone in a foreign country. Ging’s phone number sort of looked like this, didn’t it? Without thinking much about it, he reached into his pocket for his flip phone, opening it with his thumb and punching in the digits as he read them off the desktop. The beep of his fingers pressing against the keypad punctuated the silence in the room. Both Killua and Kurapika swung their gazes over to Gon upon hearing the noise.

“Hey, aren’t you being a little hypocritical right now?” Killua accosted him. Gon didn’t turn to face him, still concentrating on typing the number into his phone without making a mistake. “If Biscuit comes in here while you’re doing that, we’ll all get in trouble, remember?”

“Just a second,” Gon said distractedly, punching in the last few numbers before pressing the green button near the top of the keypad. The ring out was short and quickly cut to the sound of a busy line.  _ The number you have reached is not in service…  _

“What are you doing?” That voice was coming from right beside him now. Gon looked up and he was met with Killua’s hard stare. The skater seemed incensed but also slightly curious. His gaze flicked from Gon to the surface of his desk, his pale eyes lighting up in realization. “Wait, you actually called one of them?” he said, gesturing to one of the many sketchy phone numbers graffitied onto the tabletop. “Are you an idiot?” he laughed.

Gon frowned at him, thinking the name calling was a bit uncalled for. He stared at his phone; the screen went blank after the line dropped. “No.”

“What did you get?” Killua continued to tease him. “The rejection hotline?”

“I didn’t call that one,” Gon said to Killua, who was still pointing to ten digits written under the lyrics of some emo, nihilistic rock anthem. Gon wrinkled his nose. “I called this one,” he said, showing the other boy what had grabbed his attention.

Blue eyes flicked over to what Gon was talking about, then they narrowed. Killua leaned forward a bit, examining it closer. “That’s not a phone number.”

“It’s not?”

He raised an eyebrow at Gon. “Have you ever seen a phone number this long?”

The dark-haired boy scratched his cheek. “I thought it might be long-distance…”

“Can I see?” A third voice joined their discussion. Kurapika was on the opposite side of Gon’s desk now, and his face was a mask of curiosity, similar to the two other boys’. Gon moved back slightly so Kurapika could lean forward and examine the strange etchings. “I’ve never seen a phone number this long, Gon,” the blond said dubiously, echoing Killua.

If it was two against one, then Gon thought he must be wrong. Moreover, Kurapika was undoubtedly older and he seemed smart. He couldn’t quite tell if Killua was, the silver-haired boy seemed to be more of a troublemaker than anything else. “What is it then?” Gon asked.

“It looks like a cipher,” Killua said, putting fingertips to his chin thoughtfully.

“A cipher?”

“A coded message.” Killua put his hands behind his head. “That’s my guess at least.”

Gon shook his head, not understanding. “These are numbers though.”

“Gon.” Kurapika went back to his desk to retrieve a piece of paper and a pen from his messenger bag, before writing out the letters of the alphabet, then numbering them one to twenty-six. Gon felt the rusty gears in his head grinding painfully. “If you want to encrypt a message this way, you just assign a digit to each letter like this. Then rewrite the message using the numbers.” Kurapika took another glance at the cipher. “It looks like the author removed the spaces between the words. That would make it a little harder to decode.”

“You mean you can turn this back into words?” Gon lit up with excitement. He was burning with curiosity about the secret message. There wasn’t any particular reason. Maybe because he had been wallowing in extreme boredom for the past hour, it made the unexpected distraction all the more enticing.

Kurapika smiled at Gon’s enthusiasm. “Sure, it might take a little time. But it’s certainly possible.” Kurapika lifted his gray eyes to Killua, who was still staring at the cipher with a sharp look. “What do you think, Killua?”

The addressee hesitated before nodding, but then he turned away, feigning indifference. “Maybe, but who cares? It probably says something stupid anyways.”

“Hey,” Gon said, frowning at Killua’s retreating back. The silver-haired boy could only be described by one word in Gon’s opinion: sulky. But that didn’t deter Gon in the slightest. Instead, it made him even more eager to become Killua’s friend.

Gon opened his mouth to say something more, but he was interrupted by a stranger popping their head into the classroom. By virtue of being too distracted by the cipher, none of the three detention-serving students had noticed the new arrival’s approach. It was that tall guy who had been messing around in the adjacent office. He wore these small, round spectacles which might have been in fashion thirty years ago. In his arms, he carried a myriad of folders which looked ready to spill onto the floor any moment. He cocked an eyebrow at the motley crew, his gaze swinging around the room over his glasses.

“Aren’t you three supposed to be in your seats?” He was met with silence. “Y’know… not talking to each other?”

Gon tried not to panic. Forget about Ms. Krueger, this teacher was going to give them all detention again before she could. “Sorry sir,” he said nervously, “there was an emergency… uh.” Gon’s voice petered out. Lying was not one of his talents.

“You gonna give us another detention, old man?” Killua asked, cutting straight to the chase. Gon felt his mouth fall open. Killua was astonishingly bold when it came to dealing with authority figures.

“Old man?!” Leorio flinched and one of his folders went spilling to the floor, contents and all. “Shit.” He relieved his arms of their load, stacking the files onto the nearest desk in the classroom, before picking up the mess in the hall.

“He’s no teacher,” Kurapika informed his two younger companions. Gon and Killua’s eyes visibly bulged from their sockets, and Kurapika hid a quiet laugh behind his fingers while their newest arrival squawked loudly with indignation. “He’s the assistant principal’s student assistant.” Kurapika turned his large, gray eyes on the man in question. “Isn’t that right, Leorio?”

Leorio seemed to get a bit red at being confronted like this. “How do you know my name?” he stammered out, avoiding the question.

Kurapika gave him an amused look. “It wasn’t hard to find out. Not when the assistant principal yells it five times over the course any given afternoon.”

Leorio’s blush was spreading to his ears now. “Why you… that’s nothing to be proud of, the fact that you’re in detention often enough to know that!” Kurapika’s amusement dropped at this and Leorio gave the blond a gloating grin. Then he seemed to realize that both Gon and Killua were trying to hide their laughter from him, muffling it under their hands. “And you two! What do you think you're laughing at?”

Killua smirked at him. “You don’t scare me, old man. Now that I know you’re not a teacher, you’ve got no power over us.”

This got Leorio to sputter and Kurapika to smile winningly once again. Before Leorio could do something like launch himself at Killua, hoping to wipe that cat-like grin off the latter’s face, Gon interjected. “Mr. Leorio…”

“Leorio. It’s Leorio, kid. I’m only eighteen years old.”

“A legal adult!” Killua pointed out gleefully.

“Leorio,” Gon said quickly, before Killua could do any more damage. “Do you know anything about ciphers?”

The senior student blinked, his expression clearing to a questioning one. “Ciphers?” he echoed. “That has something to do with math, doesn’t it? Or computer science?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Afraid I’m balls at either of those subjects. Why do you ask?”

“Aw.” Gon visibly deflated at this admission.

“Gon found a cipher carved into his desk,” Kurapika explained, and Leorio walked over to take a look. “We were wondering how to go about decoding it.”

The student assistant peered at the message curiously, then let out a whistling breath as if impressed. “I’ve got no experience with that kind of thing,” Leorio admitted. “But if you do manage to crack it, let me know what it says. I’m interested.”

“I'll bet it says something stupid,” Killua interjected skeptically, reciting his earlier sentiment while watching this exchange from a cool distance. “It’s not worth the time and effort.”

“But what if it holds a secret to the school or something?” Gon rebutted, his eyes bright with excitement. “Like the location of a long lost map, detailing the layout of an extensive network of tunnels buried underground?” Gon let his fantasies get away from him in his ardor. Killua just gave him this exasperated, disbelieving look. He didn’t have to say ‘idiot’ out loud for Gon to know he was thinking it.

“The likelihood of that is almost zero…” Killua deadpanned.

“Gon, I’ll work on it a little in my free time,” Kurapika piped up. He still had the paper and pen in his hand from his earlier explanation, so he began to transcribe a copy of the cipher for himself.

Gon took inspiration from Kurapika and fetched a writing utensil from his backpack, haphazardly scrawling the cipher onto his homework which he had abandoned long ago. Leorio joined in, taking his Blackberry from his pocket and snapping a picture of the encoded message. Killua had always prided himself upon being apart from the mainstream -- he was a skater, he ate chocolate at lunch instead of proper nutrition, and he railed against authority. His persona practically screamed hipster. But that afternoon, he learned that he too was susceptible to the phenomenon known as peer pressure. Sighing, he gave in and borrowed Gon’s pen, copying the cipher onto the palm of his hand.

“So?” Gon said after they all stared at each other for a beat of silence. “Are we going to work together on this? Or what if one of us cracks it? How should we let the others know?”

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately for them, fate decided to solve this little dilemma for them. Ms. Krueger chose this very moment to return to the classroom, a dreamy and satisfied smile on her lips. The four students stared at her, shell-shocked and caught dead in the act of misbehaving as she waltzed in. Her expression quickly deepened to one of even greater pleasure. “Guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other this week,” she announced to the dead silence of the room.

Well, at least they didn’t have to worry about meeting up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The code-writing and breaking will be done in English because... I don't even know how that works in Japanese XD I know too little about hiragana/katakana to even attempt writing about them. So there's an inaccuracy for ya, sorry ^^;;


	2. Stumbling Blocks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you like some more pop punk from the early 2000's? *pulls out old, almost dead iPod shuffle from middle school years* SO WOULD I.
> 
> [Here we go](https://youtu.be/0dSC4WNIz3M).

The bad news was that they had after-school detention for another four days.

The good news was that they finally had something better to do during said detentions, other than stare at the walls for two hours.

The other bad news was that code cracking was hard.

At least Gon thought so. They still couldn’t talk under Ms. Krueger’s watchful eye, but he would glance over at Killua and Kurapika every now and then to see how they were doing with the puzzle. (Biscuit had shown remarkable clemency and let Leorio off with a warning, so the senior didn’t have to suffer detention with his younger peers. But she did promise that if she ever ‘saw his scruffy face in her classroom again’ she would not be so merciful next time.)

Kurapika was a junior, so his free time was precious little. During detention, he mostly read for his literature class or did homework, giving a few minutes of his attention to the cipher in between assignments. Killua however, for all his initial pushback about pursuing the cipher, took to code breaking with the most enthusiasm. It was ironic and amusing to see how caught up in it he was, his pencil scratching away for two hours in an unbroken rhythm, blue eyes flicking to and fro in deep thought. If Gon managed to catch his eye, the dark-haired boy would smile at his rebellious classmate, and the latter would reply with a funny look before ducking his head and resuming his work.

Gon himself made little progress on the puzzle. He just had to admit, this wasn’t his strong suit, applying his mind to tough problems like this. But that didn’t stop his excitement about the secret message, and it only grew as the week went on.

Leorio, in the assistant principal’s office, could be seen working on the puzzle himself while the other three had detention. But he didn’t make much headway on it either, one because his duties as student assistant came first and two, because in his own words, he was balls at puzzle-solving.

At the end of the week, the quartet decided to celebrate the end of their detention streak by eating at the nearby diner, Knov’s. It was an old-fashioned joint which made you feel fifty years older when you walked through the doors. The employees were nice though, even though they had to deal with shitty teenagers all the time. Knov’s was the closest restaurant to the high school so business was good for them, though the workers had to put up with so much.

Strangely enough, the quartet had bonded over the past week through their shared delinquency. Gon, Killua, and Kurapika left detention together every day, and Leorio naturally joined them since his duties wrapped up at the same time detention ended. They would walk to the front of the school together where Leorio and Kurapika would say their goodbyes, the former heading to his beat-up car in the senior lot, the latter going home on foot. Gon and Killua would leave the school together, Gon on his bike and Killua on his skateboard, before they also split at a fork down the road.

Gon actually had friends now, he was ecstatic at the development. Being new to the school district and a freshman, he’d started the year all alone. Gon was amicable though and he knew it would be only a matter of time before he found companions, it’s just… he hadn’t quite expected to find them in  _ this _ way.

Well, he wasn’t complaining. As far as he was concerned, they were the greatest friends he could ever hope for.

So back to the present, the gang of four made their way through the doors of the infamous diner, feeling like they’d just been transported half a century into the past. They slid into a four-person booth, and ordered drinks when the waiter approached them: black coffee for Kurapika, sodas for Gon and Leorio, and a chocolate milkshake for Killua. When they received their drinks, they raised a toast to not ever having to see Ms. Krueger’s face again (hopefully).

“Wait,” Gon said, frowning. He hesitated clinking his glass against the other three’s. “Er… she wasn’t  _ that _ bad, was she?” Killua’s expression grew disbelieving. “I mean, she was strict but…”

“Not that bad?” Killua repeated incredulously. “Gon, she’s freaking insane. She lives to make students miserable,” he reasoned, leaning his elbow on the table and waving his hand up and down for emphasis, then pointing at Gon. “You included.”

“Gon,” Kurapika flagged the addressee’s attention with his soft voice, lowering his mug from their unfinished toast to take a sip of coffee. “Don’t mind Killua. He and Ms. Krueger have… shall we say, a bit of history.”

At this piece of information, Gon turned to Killua with surprise. Then he waggled his eyebrows at the silver-haired boy suggestively, while Leorio snickered into his hand. Killua promptly flushed a deep red, throwing a glare at Kurapika across the table who wore a faintly amused expression, hiding the small smile on his lips behind the rim of his mug. “Did you have to say it like that?” the silver-haired boy asked accusingly. “You make it sound so nasty.”

Kurapika lifted a delicate eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”

Killua crossed his arms, radiating belligerent intent. “No shit, you are!” Gon and Leorio were laughing full force now, holding their sides trying to contain their amusement while Kurapika also chuckled audibly into his fingertips. “It’s not like that, okay?” he pleaded his case, flustered. He ran a hand through his white hair, taking a frustrated breath.

Leorio put a hand on the silver-haired boy’s shoulder, wiping the tears from his eyes. His expression was kind though as he regarded Killua, who sat beside him. “We know it’s not. We were just having some fun, Killua.”

Killua’s face was still red, but he seemed somewhat mollified as he slumped further down his seat, taking his milkshake with him. “Biscuit just likes to give me a hard time, that’s all.”

Gon quirked an eyebrow at him. “You called her an old hag, Killua,” he pointed out. “And you flipped her off.”

At this comment, Killua placed his milkshake back on the table, the base of the glass making a dull thump against the hard surface. “She  _ is _ an old hag.” He leveled a searching look at Gon, who started to fidget when Killua didn’t let up.

“What?”

“I’ve been wondering, how did you manage to land detention in the first place?” Silver eyebrows inched down a little. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Ah well, that’s…” Gon bit his lip, tracing his fingers against the slippery glass of his soda. “I have a hard time sitting still in class,” he admitted sheepishly, face turning warm. His aunt often scolded him for his restlessness, though it was all well-intentioned. She didn’t want him getting in trouble outside of home… which is exactly what ended up happening once he started attending public school. “I don’t mean to cause trouble,” Gon explained, “but I end up getting distracted when class is boring, and then I distract other people around me and…” He trailed off. “Yeah, one of my teachers just decided that they had enough of me.”

“Which one?” Leorio asked, leaning back against his seat.

“Mr. Meruem,” Gon admitted dejectedly.

“Oh, that guy? He’s a hard ass anyways,” Leorio reassured Gon, who was still looking down at the table with a slightly guilty expression. Kurapika nodded his agreement with Leorio, both older students having experienced the rite of passage that was Mr. Meruem’s philosophy course.

Killua observed his fellow freshman thoughtfully. Gon really was a nice kid, if he felt that bad about disrupting class when he didn’t do it on purpose. “I don’t blame you,” the silver-haired boy commented.

Gon looked up, meeting his stare. “Huh?”

Killua shrugged. “Class is so boring. It’s impossible  _ not _ to get distracted. I usually just fall asleep.”

At this, Gon smiled and instantly brightened. Killua had swept away his insecurities in an instant. “I can’t,” he laughed. “I just get so much energy when I’m sitting there, like it comes out of nowhere! I get so restless.”

Killua smirked at him. “So let me guess, gym class is your favorite?”

“Of course!”

“Gon,” Kurapika’s gray eyes were fond as he regarded the easily excitable boy. “Why don’t you join a school sport? That might help you burn off some energy.”

Gon blinked at this suggestion. “School sport?”

“Yeah,” Leorio nodded his agreement with the blond. “You know, like soccer or lacrosse, swimming?” he offered.

Gon was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he scratched the back of his head. “What are school sports exactly?” When he was met with surprised silence, Gon explained bashfully, “I was homeschooled until this year, so I really don’t know. Do you play for the school?”

Leorio cleared his throat, recovering first. “Right. And you compete alongside your fellow classmates. The school sets up matches against other schools in the area.”

“Practices are usually held after class,” Kurapika added.

Gon considered this. “That does sound like a great idea,” he admitted. “I’m always so restless by the end of the day.” His aunt sometimes wouldn’t let him back into the house in the afternoons, until he got rid of all his excess energy by running around or something.

“The athletic season should be starting soon, so you should think about it and make a decision.”

Gon nodded at his friends, accepting the suggestion and giving it serious consideration. 

Killua was watching Gon, thinking about what the dark-haired boy just told them. He didn’t know Gon had been homeschooled until this year. That would make sense why Gon didn’t seem to have any friends outside of their small circle, especially because Gon seemed like the kind of person to have lots of friends. That made Killua feel a little uncomfortable, strangely enough. He sort of liked the idea of being special to the other freshman. He wanted things to stay that way.

That was probably because, like Gon, Killua didn’t have any other friends. But unlike Gon, he wasn’t new to the school. Killua just kept to himself for the most part. It was part of his whole hipster persona, after all. Friends were so mainstream.

… unless their names were Gon, Kurapika, and Leorio apparently.

“Hey.” Gon’s voice plucked Killua out of his reverie. Their food had arrived at some point while he was being introspective, and he had barely noticed. 

Killua picked up a French fry from his basket, dipping it into his milkshake. “Yeah?”

“Now that I’ve told you about how  _ I _ earned detention, it’s your turn to share,” Gon said, pointing a chicken tender at him.

Killua shuffled his shoulders, chewing. “It was probably for skipping class. Or skateboarding on school grounds.” He shrugged. “I forget which one.” Killua didn’t mention that it also could have been for starting the rumor that Ms. Siberia, his homeroom teacher, had a compulsion to pull her eyebrows out, and so she had to get them tattooed on.

He’d voiced that hypothesis to his entire homeroom -- loud enough for everyone to hear, including Ms. Siberia herself. It had been one of Killua’s prouder moments.

Leorio peered at Kurapika curiously, who was eating his veggie burger with a fork and knife, much to no one’s surprise. “What about you, Kurapika? How’d you get in trouble?”

Kurapika sighed, feeling that this conversation would be inevitable so long as he continued spending time with his three new friends. He carefully set his cutlery down against the edge of his plate. “There’s this teacher who I… have problems getting along with.”

“Oh?” Killua immediately pounced on this piece of information, sensing the opportunity for payback. “You’ve got a history with them or something?” he asked, grinning.

Kurapika leveled him with an unamused glare which Killua ignored, happily munching on his fries. “Unlike you, Killua, I don’t take pleasure in disrespecting authority.” Killua only puffed up at this comment like he took it as a compliment, rather than a criticism. Kurapika sighed. “This teacher, he often gives me detention for no reason.”

“What?” Gon stared at Kurapika, eyes wide and crumbs strewn all over his cheeks. Kurapika nodded solemnly beside him. Honestly, just as Killua had been wondering about Gon, Gon had been wondering how Kurapika managed to get detention when he seemed like such a model student.

“That’s like… harassment though,” Leorio said, struggling to find the right word.

“Indeed,” Kurapika agreed. “He also likes to embarrass me in front of the class, and he grades my assignments much harsher than others, even failing me on occasion. I’ve compared my grades with some of my peers, so I know the treatment is unfair.”

“Can’t you tell someone about this?” Gon asked, his large eyes were full of sympathy and concern for his friend, as well as anger at the injustice. “Like report him to the principal or something.” Gon wasn’t actually sure if the principal was the right person to handle things like this, but he was sure the idea was right.

“I’ve tried,” Kurapika sighed. “At the beginning of the school year, when it started happening. But it’s a teacher’s word against mine. No action was taken against him, and nothing will ever be done.” He frowned. “Probably.”

“Kurapika,” Gon said urgently, getting the blond to look at him. The dark-haired freshman clenched his hand in a fist, his eyebrows lowering over his amber orbs in a determined set. “If the school isn’t going to do anything about this guy, then we will.”

The blond’s eyes widened. “Gon…” 

“That’s right,” Leorio chimed in, pumping his own fist. “We’ll show that asshole he picked the wrong guy to mess with!”

Killua nodded, showing that he was also in on this, and Kurapika was touched by the show of support from his friends. “I’m grateful,” he said quietly, “to all of you.”

“Yeah!” Then Leorio hesitated for a moment, his bluster faltering. “Wait, who is it we’re going after exactly?” He looked at Kurapika across the table, his gaze turning sincere and serious. “Can you tell us who it is?”

Kurapika looked down at the table. “Kuroro Lucifer. The anthropology teacher.”

“That douchebag?” Leorio exclaimed, getting Kurapika’s to stare at him, lips parted in surprise. “Yeah, I had him for human geography last year. Having to hear his voice for an entire semester was just…” The senior student shivered, remembering the trauma. “And what’s worse, the girls were crazy about him! Even the guys thought he was cool, though it’s obvious he’s a total creep.” There was a light shade of pink dusting Kurapika’s cheeks as Leorio promised, “We’ll get him back for sure, Kurapika!”

At that reassurance, the blond smiled openly, feeling grateful to the older student for his show of unconditional support. On that note, they went back to happier conversation, enjoying the food and drinks they ordered to celebrate their liberation from the evil clutches of the school’s justice system.

Inevitably, the talk eventually turned to the cipher, which had been on everyone’s mind for the past week, to varying degrees of intensity. Gon was ironically, maybe the one most interested in it and he’d gotten the least amount of work on it done.

Killua picked at the small, misshapen fries in the bottom of his basket, commenting nonchalantly, “I’ve made some progress on it.”

Gon just beamed at him. He knew, he could see how hard Killua had been working on decoding the secret message all week. He’d been waiting for the silver-haired boy to share his findings.

Killua glanced away from Gon’s beaming face, it was making him feel funny. He cleared his throat, pulling a napkin from the dispenser on their table and fishing a pen from the pocket of his shorts. At this point, he remembered the cipher by heart, having copied it down so many times already. So he transcribed a copy of the message on the napkin, along with the letters of the alphabet underneath. Just as Kurapika had during the afternoon they met, he numbered the letters one to twenty-six.

“What makes this tricky is that there are no spaces between the words,” Killua informed his three companions, who were leaning over the table so they could see his writing. “The first step is to parse the message as much as possible, so we can figure out the individual letters.”

Killua glanced up from the napkin, saw the confused look on Leorio’s face and the steam coming out of Gon’s ears. He smacked his palm against his forehead, and the two dark-haired students issued an apology. At least Kurapika seemed like he was following Killua’s reasoning. The silver-haired boy forged ahead.

“If we assume that the author used this numbering system,” Killua pointed to the numbered alphabet written below the cipher, “then we know that the largest number this message can contain is twenty-six. That means we can split the message up like this.” He drew a series of vertical strokes between the digits of the cipher, demonstrating what he meant:

5 | 214 | 25 | 8 | 17 | 8 | 26 | 26 | 18 | 2115 | 7 | 6 | 1122121

He looked up for confirmation. Gon’s eyes had turned into swirling pinwheels while Leorio just stared at the napkin blankly. Kurapika nodded his continued understanding, much to Killua’s relief. The silver-haired boy did a quick count. “This step gives us five letters,” he said, recopying the cipher with the proper substitutions:

E | 214 | 25 | H | 17 | H | 26 | 26 | 18 | 2115 | G | F | 1122121

The two dark-haired males were staring off into space now, their minds transported to some place far away. Killua thought about supplementing his explanation, though maybe it would be futile. The silver-haired boy had an inkling that he was a poor teacher, so Gon and Leorio couldn’t really be blamed. “‘E’ is the fifth letter of the alphabet, right?” he tried. “And ‘H’ is the eighth, so we can make replacements like that for these five numbers.” He went down the line, indicating the digits he was referring to.

“Why didn’t you change the twenty-five?” Gon asked, fighting valiantly against the numbness which threatened to blanket his consciousness. “Or the seventeen? Those are letters too, aren’t they?”

“Not necessarily,” Killua disagreed. The resulting pout on Gon’s face was rather endearing. “Think about it.” He pointed to the ‘25’ in question. “This could either be one letter, the twenty-fifth of the alphabet, or it could be two letters, the second and the fifth.” Gon’s lips formed an ‘o’ and realization dawned in his earnest eyes, causing Killua to smile. Though when the rebellious teen realized what expression he was making, he quickly corralled it back to neutrality.

“What about ‘214’?” Leorio asked, pointing to the triplet of numbers following the first decoded letter. “You said there can’t be any numbers bigger than twenty-six.”

“Yeah,” Killua agreed. “But like the answer to Gon’s question, ‘214’ can be broken up in more than one way. You could break it up as three numbers -- two, one and four; or you could break it up as two numbers -- either two and fourteen, or twenty-one and four. Since we don’t know which of those is right, we just leave like this for now.”

“In this first step, we only decode the letters we’re certain of,” Kurapika summarized succinctly, and Killua confirmed this with a nod.

His companions seemed to be grasping onto his explanation a little better now. “This actually brings me to the point I’ve been stuck on,” Killua admitted, and three pairs of eyes urged him to continue. He blinked at his audience’s renewed enthusiasm, saying slowly, “I’m not sure how to parse the message beyond this point. Like this triplet Leorio mentioned.” Killua pointed to the ‘214’ written in the second grouping of the cipher. “This could be three different letters, or it could be two. There’s three possibilities in total.”

“Why not try them all?” Kurapika suggested. “See if anything sensical comes out.”

“I did that.” Killua began scribbling on the napkin. “This could either be ‘BAD’ or ‘UD’ or ‘BN’,” he translated with the help of the numbered alphabet.

“‘Bad’ is a word,” Gon pointed out hopefully, earning him an exasperated, if not vaguely fond look from his fellow freshman.

“Don’t forget the ‘E’ coming before it,” Leorio reminded them.

“Fine,” Killua said, humoring his friends. “So let’s say we have ‘EBAD’ so far which… doesn’t make any sense, obviously. But whatever.” He ran a hand through his hair. “The next group of numbers, ‘25’, could either be ‘BE’ or ‘Y’.”

“‘Be’ is also a word!” Gon cheered, and Killua felt his eyebrow twitch.

“Okay,” Killua gritted out in acknowledgement. “So we have ‘EBADBE’. Care to tell me what that means, Gon?” he challenged his fellow freshman, who grew suspiciously quiet.

“Killua.” Kurapika was still staring down at the skater’s analysis on the napkin. “I don’t see anything wrong with your reasoning. If you write out every possible translation for each group of numbers, then you can mix and match them to see if you get anything that makes sense.”

Killua sighed. “I tried that. Except for this bit at the end,” he qualified, underlining the string of ones and twos at the right tail of the cipher. “Since there’s a ton of possibilities for that section.”

“We can ignore it for now,” Kurapika said. “The rest of the message might give us a clue to what that part says anyways.”

“Except that it doesn’t.” The silver-haired boy deflated slightly, sharing the conclusion of his work on the cipher. “No matter how you translate this first part, as a whole, the message doesn’t come out to anything reasonable.”

The four students lapsed into a grim silence at this dreary conclusion. The waiter arrived at their table with the check a moment later. Each took a turn glancing at the bill, then contributed a number of bills and coins to the end of the table, until they had enough to cover the total. Silence reigned, everyone still deep in thought.

Killua was especially troubled because it seemed like his prediction, that the ‘cipher’ was actually just garbage, was nearing reality. And he’d already wasted so much time working on it. The silver-haired boy barely resisted the urge to bang his head against the table.

Finally, Kurapika spoke up. “It might be double-coded,” he said, offering some hope. Blue eyes flicked over to the blond’s gray ones, a silent question. “What I mean is, the author of this message might have used  _ two _ methods to encrypt the message.”

Killua put fingertips to his chin, rubbing absently at it. He thought about the hypothesis, staring down at the napkin which was scribbled all over. After some time, he threw up his hands. “That’s just great!” he exclaimed, frustrated as ever.

Gon’s eyebrows had jumped to his hairline at the outburst. Based on Killua’s tone and contrary to his words, he didn’t seem very pleased at all. 

“How can we break the second cipher if we’ve barely made any progress on the first?” the silver-haired boy questioned. There was a wrinkle between his brows, evincing his frustration.

Kurapika gave him a reassuring glance. “I’ve got an idea about that.”

Killua’s troubled expression turned into surprise. “You do?”

Kurapika hummed, holding his palm out to Killua. The latter handed over the napkin he’d been writing on, along with his pen. Three heads now crowded over Kurapika’s place on the table. “What I think is that we don’t need a perfect decryption of this first cipher to work on the second.” Kurapika’s gray eyes met the bright gazes of his companions, a conspiratorial glint to them. “We make a guess.”

Killua promptly frowned. “A guess?” He said it like the suggestion left a bad taste in his mouth. “Won’t that leave too much room for error?” It was an understatement, Killua thought; about a million things could go wrong if they were sloppy about this, most of all they could end up with a false, yet seemingly reasonable decryption. The idea was enough to sour his mood.

Kurapika chuckled quietly, fully expecting the pushback. “You’ve been taking a very methodical approach to this so far, which is admirable,” the blond said. The freshman grew a bit bashful at the older student’s praise. “But code-breaking requires guesswork and above all, a reliance on intuition.” Kurapika held a pedagogical finger in the air, gauging his audience’s reaction.

Gon and Leorio didn’t seem to have any objections, excitedly nodding along (and perhaps not following the conversation entirely, but Kurapika appreciated their enthusiasm). On the other hand, it seemed like the suggestion still didn’t sit well with Killua, but he made no further protest. “Like I said,” Kurapika picked up his earlier train of thought, glancing down at the napkin. The tip of the pen hovered over Killua’s first attempt at decryption. “We’ll make a guess, just to give us a starting point. Any suggestions?”

“There’s a lot of twos,” Gon observed about the cipher.

“So that means…” Leorio hesitated. “Should we change all of those twos to ‘B’s?”

“I don’t think so.” To everyone’s surprise, it was Gon who spoke again. He was giving the coded message a hard look, and there was no longer any smoke coming from his ears. In fact, one could practically see the gears meshing cleanly inside that spiky head.

“Why not?” the other freshman prompted him, and Gon looked startled at the question, like he didn’t realize that he’d actually spoken his opinion aloud.

“Oh, well…” His cheeks took on this pink tint. “I just get this feeling that the twos aren’t supposed to stand alone. Wherever there’s a two, we should link it with the number coming right after. Like here.” Gon pointed to ‘214’ in the cipher. “We should view this as twenty-one and four.”

Killua hummed, considering the proposal. “What’s your reasoning?”

Gon tried a smile, though it came out uncertain. “I don’t have one.”

The silver-haired freshman felt his eye twitch. “Seriously?”

“Yes. But it’s fine, right?” Gon insisted. “Kurapika said that a big part of code-breaking is following your intuition. And that’s what my intuition is telling me.”

Killua didn’t seem convinced, but that was okay because Kurapika was giving Gon this approving smile, and he was the one with the pen. The blond split the cipher further, in accordance with Gon’s suggestion, then made the translation:

E | 21 | 4 | 25 | H | 17 | H | 26 | 26 | 18 | 21 | 15 | G | F | 11 | 22 | 1 | 21

E | U | D | Y | H | Q | H | Z | Z | R | U | O | G | F | K | V | A | U

“There,” the blond said, seemingly satisfied with his handiwork. He leaned back against his seat, away from the table to allow his companions a closer look.

“You-dee-huh-kew-ha-zzz-roo…” Gon tried his best to sound out the resulting message, forming the phonetics with exaggerated movements of his lips, his eyebrows scrunched in concentration. Killua couldn’t help the snort that erupted from his throat, finding the whole thing too comical. Gon punched Killua’s arm in retaliation, but it was good-natured and pretty soon he was giggling too. The whole table quickly dissolved into laughter.

“What is this?” Gon finally asked, looking to Kurapika for guidance. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“As I said, my guess is that the cipher is double-coded, which means we’ll have to decode this one more time.”

At this prognosis, Gon almost whined. It wasn’t that the dark-haired freshman couldn’t be patient. He could, when he had to be. But he’d really psyched himself up into thinking there would only be one hurdle to this whole mystery.

Sensing his disappointment, Kurapika tried to give him some consolation. “The second decryption shouldn’t be too complicated.”  _ Hopefully, _ he silently added to himself, seeing how Gon’s face instantly brightened. “We can apply some basic techniques to this,” he tapped the seemingly nonsensical string of letters on the napkin, “to see if we get any good results.”

“And… what happens if we don’t?” Leorio ventured cautiously, providing the voice of reason (as he figured he should -- after all, he was the oldest one here).

“If we don’t, then we might have to give up,” Kurapika admitted with an apologetic shrug.

“What?” Gon actually did whine this time, his face crestfallen. “But why?”

“Because Gon,” Killua tried not to let his expression waver as Gon turned to him, the latter’s eyes having grown to the size of small, watery planets. “In code-breaking, at some point you cross the line between applying a methodical and valid approach, to just moving letters around and trying to find a message when there is none.” It was still in the back of Killua’s mind, the worst-case scenario that this entire enterprise was just a dud. He tried to push the apocryphal thoughts away, instead turning to Kurapika and asking, “Do you have any ideas about the second encryption?”

Kurapika was quiet for a moment’s reflection. “Maybe a simple transposition,” he said finally, “or another substitution.”

It didn’t make much sense to Gon and Leorio, but Killua seemed to comprehend the advice just fine. Kurapika picked the napkin off their table, then held it out to the silver-haired freshman who accepted it with a raised eyebrow. “You’re not going to make a copy for yourself?” Killua asked, referring to the work they’d accomplished together.

The corners of the blond’s mouth lifted in amusement, and there was something not completely innocuous about it. “I trust that you’ll do a good job on the rest, Killua.”

“Wha -- hey!” Killua, being of a somewhat deceitful nature himself, easily saw through Kurapika’s act. “You’re leaving me to do all the work?” he protested, his hands splayed against his chest in exaggerated offense.

“Oi, oi.” Leorio’s expression was looking suspiciously similar to the junior’s, almost like they were in conspiracy with each other. “Have some respect for your elders, won’t you?”

“No,” Killua said mutinously, crossing his arms over his chest.

“As upperclassmen, we’re very busy people,” Kurapika said in a smooth, persuasive tone, getting the incensed freshman to roll his eyes in disbelief.

Those two, busy? Killua doubted it. Kurapika maybe (he  _ was _ a junior) but definitely not Leorio. The school year hadn’t even reached the midpoint, but it was obvious the guy already had second semester senioritis. (Killua had seen his two older brothers go through high school, after all; he knew the patterns by this point.)

Besides, Killua was a busy person too, didn’t they have any consideration? He had so much to do this weekend, like clean his skateboard, clean his skateboard wheels, clean the bearings, stop by the corner store to buy more cakes --

There was the sudden, startling sensation of something poking him in the ribs, making the air whoosh from his lungs and nearly squeezing a yelp from his throat. Gon smiled cheekily at Killua from his side, having rounded the table to get his friend’s attention. 

“I agree with Kurapika and Leorio. I trust you the most with the code, Killua,” Gon added his vote of confidence, angling his head to look up at the slightly taller freshman. “Your efforts are what got us to this point, so if anyone can figure out the last step, it’s gotta be you.”

He said this without breaking eye contact, his amber orbs still resembling Pluto and Charon in their largeness, but now they were sparkling with eagerness. The simple honesty which Gon so effortlessly exhibited left Killua breathless… literally. He heaved in some much needed air, refilling his lungs which had been jostled by Gon’s elbow just seconds ago.

“Um, yeah,” he mumbled finally, without much thought. “Okay.”

Kurapika and Leorio tittered about something in the background, but neither freshman really noticed. Dinner and conversation depleted, the quartet left the confines of their booth, making their way to the diner’s exit.

“Hey, Killua?” Gon said as he walked by Killua’s side.

The addressee glanced at him. “Hm?”

“I’ve been wondering…” The dark-haired boy seemed to struggle with his words. “About the cipher,” he stumbled, “you know how we’re guessing that it uses the numbers one to twenty-six to stand for the letters?”

“Sure,” Killua agreed.

“How do we know that?” Gon tilted his head, querying, “I mean, what if the person who wrote the cipher used a different set of numbers? Then our guess would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Killua frowned. “I was just assuming the good graces of the author that they actually wanted their damn code solved, rather than making it impossible,” he grumbled, reaching the exit doors and shoving through them with a little more force than necessary. The action made Gon smile as he followed Killua out, the two older students bringing up the rear. 

Even though it didn’t feel like much time had passed, it was already quite late, the sun hanging well below the hilly terrain of their neighborhood. “I’ll give you guys a ride home,” Leorio offered as they traipsed back to the school grounds.

The two freshmen shook their heads in sync. Gon said, “I’ve got my bike.”

“And I’ve got my skateboard,” Killua echoed, hoisting said object which was tucked under his right arm.

Leorio crossed his arms, his keychain jangling as his fingers curled around it. “‘M afraid that won’t do.”

The corners of Gon’s mouth quirked down at this, not understanding. “Huh?”

“Do you not see how late it is?!” Leorio exclaimed suddenly, losing his cool. “And on a Friday night, I’ll betcha there are loads of drunk people behind the wheel already! No, I don’t even need to bet -- I  _ know _ there are because I’ve seen them!” Gon and Killua shared a look of confusion at being unexpectedly subjected to, what sounded like, part of the mandatory five-hour driving course. Leorio continued, “If you think I’ll willingly let you two get run over by some hooligan on your way home, well… TOUGH LUCK!”

The senior student breathed heavily into the silence which followed. Indeed, all three of his companions were rather dumbstruck by his soliloquy. Finally, Killua piped up, “Look, old man, I appreciate it -- ”

“I AM NOT AN OLD MAN!”

“ -- but you don’t need to go full dad-mode on us.”

Gon burst out laughing at this comment and pretty soon, Killua joined in with a chuckle. Kurapika placed a hand on Leorio’s shoulder, trying to be a reassuring presence to the older student, but not being able to fully stifle his own amusement.

“Screw you guys,” Leorio muttered, glad for the dim light of dusk because his cheeks were burning. “This is how you thank me for being concerned? Forget it,” he said, turning away. They were standing in the senior lot, so he began the solitary walk of shame over to his car.

“No! Leorio, wait!” Gon ran over to him, planting himself right in front of the older student.

“What d’you want, you little punk -- ”

“I wasn’t laughing at you, Leorio!” Gon insisted. “It’s just, when Killua said ‘dad-mode’, um…” Gon couldn’t help it, he dissolved into another fit of giggles.

“I am not a dad!” Leorio yelled, his face feeling only hotter.

“Then why does your car look like that?” Killua asked, coming up to stand beside Gon. The silver-haired freshman was pointing at the only car left in the lot -- an old, white van which looked very much like the prototypical vehicle which parents told their young children to stay away from.

“It was a  _ hand-me-down _ ,” Leorio enunciated with unequivocal clarity.

Kurapika’s calm voice floated by his right shoulder, though there was an undercurrent of latent amusement to it. “And why do you come to school dressed in a suit and tie every day?” Leorio sputtered indignantly, cradling his battered pride until all three of his friends relented. They reassured him that his van was cool and his look was classy, and that neither made him appear prematurely aged.

They finally settled on the arrangement that Kurapika would accept a ride home from Leorio, while Gon and Killua could leave in their usual fashion, so long as they headed out  _ right now, you little punks, _ before the sun set. The two freshmen saluted their older peers before running off towards the bike rack. Gon made quick work of his bike lock, spinning through the combination, and then they rode frantically off the school grounds, as fast as they could before dad -- er, Leorio changed his mind.

At the fork in the road, where the two freshmen typically split from their shared route, Gon squeezed the right handle of his bike, the rear wheel squeaking conspicuously. Killua power slid his skateboard to a stop. They looked at each other.

“I didn’t mean for you to get stuck with all the work,” Gon said suddenly.

Killua blinked at him. “What?” It took him a moment to understand what Gon meant, then his expression turned funny. “Doesn’t matter, it’s fine.”

Gon shook his head. “It’s just, I’m not very good with this code-breaking stuff,” he admitted sheepishly. “But you are! You’re really smart, Killua.”

The silver-haired boy wanted nothing more, in that moment, than to slap a hand across Gon’s mouth. His face quickly heated up at the praise, the words on his tongue melting like snow. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, succeeding at nothing except possibly refuting Gon’s high opinion of his intellect. His friend seemed to politely ignore this, giving Killua a kind smile.

“I know I can’t be of much help,” Gon prefaced. He suddenly looked down at the sidewalk, appearing strangely unsure of himself. “But if you want to talk about the code together, you could stop by my homeroom some time.”

The last word of Gon’s invitation died on the light breeze. Killua stared at Gon until the latter began to fidget, where he was still straddling his bike. Killua cleared his throat, then said very nonchalantly, “Yeah.” He cleared his throat again. “Yeah, that… that sounds good.”

It was like the setting sun had made a reappearance on Gon’s face. He leapt over the seat of his bike in one fluid, practiced movement, kicking open the stand before walking over to Killua. "I'll give you my homeroom number," Gon said, beaming, and he fished a pen from his pocket. When he made to retrieve some paper from his backpack, Killua coughed, getting his attention.

“You can just write it on my hand,” the silver-haired boy said, trying, for the love of all that is good and holy, to maintain his nonchalance.

“Um…” Was it the light or did Gon look kind of flustered? Killua squinted dumbly, trying to see, until he realized that he was probably weirding the other boy out with his intense stare. “Is there something on my face?” Gon asked, startled.

“No!” Killua’s expression shuttered instantly, and he threw his focus to the side, where he could still see Gon in his periphery without having to suffer the mortification of directly facing him. “Here.” He shoved his hand under Gon’s nose. The dark-haired boy blinked, surprised at the implicit command, before he gently took Killua’s hand in his own, lowering it and pressing the tip of the pen to his palm.

The sensation of Gon writing across the lifelines of his hand felt distinctly ticklish. Gon’s hand itself was warm and dry. Killua’s hand was the opposite: cold and fast growing sweaty under this strange and sudden onslaught of nerves. Killua dared to look at Gon, once he noted that the other boy was fully preoccupied with his task. His amber eyes were downcast, dark and long eyelashes sweeping over his cheekbones, lips curled in a soft smile. Killua swallowed heavily.

“My homeroom teacher,” Gon said, oblivious to the pair of cerulean eyes riveted to his face. “Mr. Wing, he’s a really nice guy.”

Killua made a sound in his throat which sounded vaguely affirmative and most certainly strangled.

“He doesn’t mind visitors, so just pop in any time.” The point of the pen stilled against Killua’s palm, and Gon looked up suddenly as if a thought just struck him. “But what about you, Killua?” he asked with maximum earnesty.

“Huh?” Killua was busy trying to hide the fact that he’d been gawking at Gon, hence why he was unable to say anything more sophisticated.

“Will you be able to get out of homeroom? Or should I visit you instead…”

“Uh, no.” Killua cut him off quickly, and Gon adopted a questioning look. “My homeroom teacher, she’s a witch,” he explained.  _ With tattooed eyebrows, _ he privately congratulated himself. “It’s better that you don’t come and find me. I’ll find you.”

With that resolute declaration, Gon smiled and let go of Killua’s hand. There was some discomfort when their point of contact was broken, though the silver-haired boy tried to hide it from showing on his face or in his mannerisms. Killua brought his palm to his face, reading the lines there. “A-hall? 221.” His arm dropped to his side and he grinned at Gon, who mirrored Killua’s satisfied expression.

“You got it,” Gon affirmed, capping his pen and slipping it back into his pocket. The wind kicked up around them and there was nothing left to say. Killua thought it might be good to offer some witty remark, because he didn’t exactly know why, but it was becoming increasingly important that Gon didn’t feel awkward around him. He cared to a scrupulous degree what the dark-haired boy thought of him, which was abnormal since Killua generally didn’t give a rat’s ass about these kinds of things… 

It was also probably unnecessary, Killua’s newfound interest in maintaining appearances (at least around a certain fellow freshman), because Gon was the most unassuming, tolerant teenager he’d ever met. His warm gaze was entirely judgement-free as it surveyed the world around him. It was like Gon expected nothing of others and in return, he hoped others would accept him at face-value. He felt no need or desire to hide himself, presenting who he was each day with an attitude of ‘this is me’.

Killua understood this as he spent more and more time with Gon. It was safe to say that the silver-haired boy was quite spellbound by his classmate’s approach towards life.

Something to say, something to make Gon laugh… in fact, it wasn’t necessary. The dark-haired boy seemed perfectly content to leave the moment this way. Killua sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets, turning his head down to hide the curl of his lips. He placed a foot on his skateboard. “I’ll see you later, Gon.”

He didn’t have to see, to hear the smile in Gon’s voice. “Have a good weekend, Killua.”

All the way home, Killua could only think of two things. First, he recited Gon’s homeroom number to himself until he committed it to memory, afraid that the markings on his palm might wipe away by accident before he could return home and copy it somewhere safe.

Second, he felt the burning of the napkin from the diner in his pocket. He’d already been interested in solving the cipher, but now there was an additional consideration: with the shared suffering of detention no longer binding them together, the cipher was Killua’s only key to seeing Gon again.

It was a strong motivator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note about the cipher: it would actually be very hard to crack, I think. That’s because it’s so short, so it doesn’t give many clues about how to solve it. However, I realized this problem _after_ writing the first two chapters. D’oh! But this is fiction so I guess it’s okay to dramatize it a little, ehehe…


End file.
